Tell Me a Riddle - first UK edition inscribed to Nobel winner George Wald, a fellow activist
London: Faber and Faber, 1964. First UK edition. Hardcover. Cloth in dust jacket, book very good, jacket also very good with some wear and light loss to spine ends. Inscribed to George Wald, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiognomy and Medicine in 1967 for his studies of rhodopsin, vitamin A and their role in retinal function and vision. He also gained fame for his anti-Vietnam War activism. In the March 15-22 1969 issue of the New Yorker, Wald's talk to a bunch of MIT students and faculty, "A Generation in Search of a Future," which discusses in explicit terms the disillusionment that accompanied the war, got widespread publicity and coverage. The April 1969 inscription by Olsen, in her tiny hand, references this: "Thank you for voicing what you did -- as you did." Olsen has also made a few tiny holograph corrections. And there is also a typed letter tipped in, from the McDowell Colony, dated April 5: "Dear Professor Wald: -- my rapidograph pen (000) which alone makes my tiny writing legible, failed in inscribing this book to you. it is sent in thanks for what you voiced. Some hour read the first and last of these pieces, marked on certain pages: 'G.W. - 3/4/69)..." Olsen was a communist, feminist and activist. She signed the 1968 Vietnam War Tax protest, refusing to pay taxes if it went to war efforts. In 1970, Wald and fellow Nobel lauriate S. E. Luria also publicly protested the war by refusing to pay taxes. Very Good / very good. Item #H10807
Price: $600.00